Here's another mention I have with Christine and Brian, at least. It's from an article about Nancy Mintie, a Los Angeles attorney who helps people on skid row. It's from December 24, 2000, Los Angeles Times.
Mintie has had her share of close calls while working on Skid Row. A mentally ill woman once tried to toss a pot of hot coffee at her. "I ducked," she said. An unstable, agitated, homeless man, carrying a blade that was nearly a foot long, threatened her. But Mintie takes the risks in stride.
"My guardian angel has been working overtime for me," she said.
The second of seven children, Mintie was reared Roman Catholic and takes her religious faith seriously. It is a motivation behind her 21-year career on Los Angeles' meanest streets.
In the mid-1980s, Mintie realized that, to be more effective, she'd have to markedly increase her funding and resources. She could do so by petitioning for state and federal support, but this would mean she'd have to sever ties with Catholic Worker, which had a policy of refusing government money.
She publicized her intentions and, in 1985, a group of rock musicians--including the Beach Boys' Brian Wilson, Fleetwood Mac's Christine McVie and the Bangles--put on a benefit for Mintie's Inner City Law Clinic. The money they raised allowed her to establish a storefront office on San Pedro Street, between 5th and 6th.
A few years ago, she moved to her present location at 7th and Central, where her clinic aids more than 3,000 clients annually.
In September, Mintie helped win a multimillion-dollar settlement for 57 tenants at an Alvarado Terrace apartment. The building's owner had leased a dank basement space to a mentally disabled couple. A child at the site had died of pneumonia.
Currently, she and two private law firms are representing the 64 adults and 38 children who lived in the 24-unit Echo Park building that collapsed Dec. 8, killing one person and injuring 36. The building had been cited for a damaged foundation in 1998.
Most of Mintie's slum cases today are in the Pico-Union and South-Central areas, she said. Over the last 10 years, nonprofit organizations have purchased and renovated downtown Los Angeles' most dilapidated hotels, markedly improving their conditions.
Mintie played a hand in this, too, for in her early years of lawyering, she sued the county to improve its single-occupancy hotel residences.
"The result was really sweeping," said attorney Hartmann, who has known Mintie for years.
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